In this sermon, the speaker emphasizes the importance of learning and discipline in the Christian life. He refers to 2 Corinthians 10:24-27, where the apostle Paul talks about running the race of faith with certainty and self-control. The speaker highlights the lack of discipline in society and how it affects missionaries on the field. He also shares a personal experience of struggling to leave his family for missionary work. Overall, the sermon encourages young people to meditate on the verses mentioned and to understand the battle of self-control in the Christian journey.

On this occasion, George Verwer took his reading from 1 Corinthians, chapter 9, commencing at verse 19. 1 Corinthians, chapter 9, commencing at verse 19. Here now is George Verwer. For though I be freed from all men, yet have I made myself servant unto all, that I might gain the more. And unto the Jews I became as a Jew, that I might gain the Jews. To them that are under the law, as under the law, that I might gain them that are under the law. To them that are without law, as without law, being not without law to God, but under the law to Christ, that I might gain them which are, or them that are without law. To the weak, because I, as weak, that I might gain the weak. I am made all things to all men, that I might by all means save some. This I do for the gospel faith, that I might be partaker thereof with you. Know ye not that they which run in a race run all, but one receiveth the prize. So run that ye may obtain. And every man that striveth for the mastery is temperate, that is self-controlled in all things. Now they do it to obtain a corruptible crown, but we an incorruptible. I therefore so run, not as uncertainly, so quite I, not as one that beateth the air. For I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection, lest that by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be a cast away, disapproved. These are verses that every young man and young woman needs to meditate on, and think about, and pray about. In studying missions and in reading some of the latest missionary releases, almost all missionary directors are in agreement that probably the major factor that is crippling so many new-coming missionaries on the field today is that so few people in our age ever learn anything of discipline. We do not realize, most of us, just from what an undisciplined society most of us have been reared in. And we get into a situation where discipline is required, and we find ourselves against a tremendous mountain of impossibilities. The number of missionaries that are cracking up in their first term on the field is staggering. Just staggering. And it's so often because they have never learned to bring their body into subjection. Verse 27, Paul speaks, But I keep under my body and bring it into subjection. And more and more God has been impressing upon me that if I fail, and those of us who are carrying responsibilities in this work fail to do everything possible to bring you into a disciplined life, we are helping you commit spiritual suicide. Sometimes, leaders, we don't like to be too harsh. We don't like to enforce the rules, and we don't like to nag on people to try to maintain the little bit of discipline we do have. And believe me, it really isn't much. We don't want to get a reputation of being hard. We have a great emphasis on love and meekness and kindness and gentleness. And we push books like Andrew Murray's Humility and Calvary Road and all these things. And so we at times, of course, can't quite see where any kind of discipline or enforcement can be applied. If you think we have any kind of discipline, you need to study the Salvation Army. I might remind you that the General William Booth cut his own daughter off. Cut his own daughter off completely because she disobeyed one command. He cut her off from the Salvation Army, the famous Maruchan in France, and cut her off as heir and as his own daughter and practically never spoke to her again. The rest of his life, even though she went on to lead more souls to Christ in her later years than he did. And it was basically because lack of discipline. He told his daughter when she left Britain, he said, first, I'm your general, and second, I'm your father. And that's the kind of discipline that many groups have had in years gone by. And of course, when you see how many tens and hundreds of thousands of souls were swept into the kingdom by the Salvation Army, you perhaps might hesitate to criticize General Booth for what seems to be a rather extreme measure. Well, we don't have anything near that. We're more lenient than most people would ever imagine. But I have been coming under deep conviction that whether I lose my best friend, I'm going to exhort, I'm going to cry, I'm going to preach, I'm going to do everything I can to get young people to see the need to bring their body into subjection at any cost. Because it's so clear here that if we don't get this discipline, if we don't learn to bring our bodies into subjection, we're going to be cast away. If the Apostle Paul is going to end up a castaway, well, I don't know what hope that gives for some of us if we don't bring our bodies into subjection. You see, basically, the Spirit of God works through our mind, works through our mind and our will. The Bible says we have the mind of Christ. And so as we pray, as we think, as we meditate, God gives us the solution in our mind. Now that's usually quite easy, isn't it? The big job then is to get what you know is right in your mind to change the whole course of your body. And many of us have, of course, discovered that our mind goes one way, pulling us toward that which is right, and our body seems to pull us the other way. If you look in Galatians, just very quickly, you have a very vivid description of this. Book of Galatians, chapter 5, verse 16. This I say then, walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfill the lusts of the flesh. For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh. And these are contrary the one to another, so that ye cannot do the things that ye would. But if ye be led of the Spirit, ye are not under the law. You should never be amazed by the pulls of the flesh. Don't be shocked, discouraged, disappointed, and depressed when the most vile, unbelievable, out-of-this-world tongues and pulls come upon your flesh. I have never met a man yet who was free from temptation, which of course is the pull upon the flesh. God promises us that if we walk in the Spirit, we'll not fulfill the lusts of the flesh. Walking in the Spirit is an act of discipline. Walking in the Spirit is saying yes to the Spirit. Some people have the idea that if they go through a certain amount of spiritual gymnastics, whether it's Bible reading, memorization, prayers, nights of prayer, spiritual crisis, that they go through something and you've got a hundred different people telling you what it is, that somehow you'll get the victory. But look, no matter what crisis you have, no matter how many verses you memorize, no matter how much you pray, no matter what kind of spiritual gymnastics you go through, you will never liquidate the need to make a decision. God is never going to take from you the decision to do right or to do wrong, to walk in the Spirit or walk in the flesh. Now, through the study of the Word of God, through drawing nigh unto Christ, we sharpen up our weapons, we learn to wear our armor, so when the decision hour comes, we have the power and the ability and the grace to say yes, but we still will not be forced to say yes. God has given us the privilege—some might not think it's a privilege— but God has given us the privilege of constantly choosing. Constantly choosing who you will serve. Every king in the Old Testament had the choice. No matter what they went through, some of them went through revival, some of them had great fathers, some of their fathers were very righteous, but then it says, and he did what was not right in the sight of God and went after the sins of Jeroboam. And over and over again we see how these men chose, we see how Solomon chose, we see how David chose. All through the Bible it is clearly seen that we have the freedom to choose. And this is what life consists of—constantly choosing, constantly choosing. Yesterday I walked past a newsstand in the morning and some planted magazines glared me in the face. That which before I knew Jesus Christ and even sometimes after used to just practically knock me out spiritually. I had to choose. Even though I had time in the world, even though I was living top spiritually, I'd been with different ones in prayer, I still had to choose and I can tell you, even though I've been converted 10 years, God has given victory for 10 years, I still find the choice not so easy. And Paul obviously did not find the choice to not serve the flesh very easy. When he said, I bring my body into subjection, lest that by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be a cancellation. And my word this morning to this young person is, you must develop a disciplined life no matter what the cost. Some people think that a disciplined life brings about the loss of their liberty. No! Disciplined life gives you liberty. It gives you the freedom to do what you know you should do and not just what your body creates to do. Discipline is the road to freedom. Bringing your body into subjection is really the way to bring it into liberty. Because as long as you don't know discipline, as long as you live by instinct, and the majority of people in the world live by instinct. Freud, in all of his psychoanalysis, analyzes truth basically. He does not live by logic. He does not live by analyzing a situation and doing that which is sensible and right. He lives by instinct, by the drives of the flesh. That Freud gave man up is pretty hopeful. Praise be to God, dear Mr. Freud didn't realize the power of the new birth. That the new birth can replace instinct drive with spirit guidance. So that we as believers are not led by instinct. We're hungry, so we gotta have food no matter what. Whether it breaks the rule, whether it hurts somebody, whether it offends somebody, this doesn't matter. We've got to eat, so we eat. We've got to have sex. And so no matter what, we try to repress it, we try to push it back, but we don't really get the victory until sooner or later. We find ourselves in the mix up that's probably knocking out 80 to 90 to 95 percent of all young people in the warfare sooner or later. And you'll never get this victory over sex. There's no sense pushing it under the table. There's no sense hiding it like we did in the days of Queen Victoria. This isn't going to help. We've got to face reality that the sex drive today and the fact that man is not controlling it is literally driving us into the deepest ditch, the same ditch that leads to all sorts of people. I want to tell you there is victory over this instinct, this drive which seems to be so forceful. Billy Graham, as some of you have heard on the tape, says don't be so surprised when it's such a strong desire. It's our creative power. God created. In the beginning God created man and he created man in his own image and that meant he gave man the power to recreate. And so this tremendous power that was released from God when he created the universes, when he created the stars, when he created man, the same power is within us. It's a tremendous force. It's our creative power. Every time we see a little child, we see the fantastic result of God's creative power to us. And so we shouldn't be surprised, but we should understand the words of Paul. I think there's many people that believe that when Paul wrote these passages he had very clearly in mind this tremendous battle that he was not free from, that I keep under my body and bring it into subjection. I was never afraid of this. I can tell you a story before I was converted. It wouldn't be very pleasant, so I won't do it. But I did nothing. Eating, sleeping, just between eating, sleeping and buying everything I ever wanted, that's the way I was. And when I started to see these things in the Bible about this, when I tried to control my Coca-Cola diet, which could almost take down 10 bottles in one night or my Popsicle craving, which used to liquidate 25 Popsicles on a hot day and blow the end of my pocketbook out. And all kinds of other little ridiculous cravings I had. It was like going over Mount Everest for a little babe like me. And yet I can say it's only because from the beginning of my Christian life I began to practice discipline. I began to bring my body into subjection by His grace. That's probably the basic reason. I would be washed out. Absolutely. Temptations that have come and it's only been because over time I've learned to say no to the flesh. And that's what you must develop. You must develop that ability to say no to the flesh. And if you do it in little things, little things concerning food, little things concerning sleep, little things concerning work, then you will get to develop. You'll develop a habit so when that big crisis comes you'll also say no. But if you don't develop that no to the flesh and the little cravings that come daily in this way and that way sometimes even things that aren't really wrong in themselves then when that big crisis comes and we're all headed for it we'll not say no. And people can tell you, men have studied this thing that if you learn how to say no over certain food, if you learn how to say no concerning sleep, if you learn how to say no concerning work, you'll learn how to say no concerning the great battle of youth. That seems to knock so many out. And one of the greatest testimonies of this work is over the years God has given us such such tremendous victory in this area of morals. Not because we are anybody, but because God's word is true. And we have had people in the ranks of this work. People, I can tell you so many stories. And I am one of them who have seen the victory and the power of God to deliver from all these kinds of problems. I want to tell you, there's been times in my life before I was converted, if I started reading a lot of psychology I would have considered myself just a case. A case for a doctor. Some of the thoughts that have come into my mind before I was a Christian and later after. I mean, if I got reading some of these interesting books which I steer clear of. Some people think I know a lot about psychology. I've never read one single psychology book. I don't particularly have any desire to do this. I've glanced through a few pages. But I think you can learn a lot more of psychology right from this book. And right from just watching. God gives us discernment. And with the word of God and with the teaching, I believe, of men of God like Dr. Adolph and books like that. I've read some of those books. We can learn more and understand more about psychology than we could at four years of university grinding our brains through the devil's meat grinder. And I want to tell you, I find that a lot of people discover that they're mentally ill by reading about it. And I think if we all had enough psychology we'd all discover that we've got some kind of neurosis or some kind of very serious problem. The more we thought about it the more serious it would get. And I've discovered that God wants us to take all of our little strange things and just cast them upon him and then bring our bodies into subjection as it says here so very, very clearly. Look at that verse 26. I therefore so run, not as uncertainly so fight I, not as one that feedeth the air. Verse 25. And every man striving for the mastery is tempered. That's discipline. Self-control. Some people are scared of that word. We have people that are always talking so much in the heavenlies that they're no earthly good. But I want to tell you God is very practical. And you will not find that you're going to live the Christian life by going through a certain creed and signing your name at the end. Nor will you find that you'll be able to live a Christian life by going up to a certain altar even if you cry all night. There is no substitute for self-control. The very fact that God used the word self-control means that you're involved. You as a free will creature as an act of the will must serve the living God. Otherwise why would Christ say if you love me, keep my commandments? He should have said if you love me, read my bible. If you love me, memorize my verses. If you love me, do this, do that. No. He says if you love me, keep my commandments. And look at John 14 very quickly and another verse. I think it's John 14 21. This is a very dangerous subject for me because I still lack discipline in keeping my messages short. But anyway, chapter 14 verse 21. He that hath my commandments and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me. Isn't that tremendous? I believe it's one of the greatest verses in the bible. Jesus is speaking. He that hath my commandments and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me. And he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father and I will love him and will manifest myself to him. Isn't that tremendous? It's your acts of discipline that say Jesus I love you. It's not when you get up in the morning and have your little devotional and say yes Lord I love you, yes I really do and you feel a little tickle in your heart. No! God isn't interested in that. That's alright. If it's backed up by life. But it's when you don't feel like doing a particular job anymore or you're out on the doors and you don't feel like going to another house and you say because I love you keep your commandments. This is the thing that proves to me my wife loves me. This is the thing that wins me. This is the thing that my wife has that batters me, breaks me and sends me down on my knees. It's because she's submissive. She does what I ask her to do. Because you know if she kept telling me she loved me, but every time I asked her to do something she did the opposite. You know pretty soon I just wonder whether she really did love me. And it's the same way with our relationship with God. We keep telling him we love him. We go through our little pantomimes and our little evangelical jargon and go through our little worship wheels and we don't obey him. We don't keep his commandments. It's just a joke. If you love me, if you love me, if you really love me, you keep my commandments. You walk in the spirit. You say yes to the spirit and no to the flesh. I've discovered in the Christian life that a vast majority of the things I do I don't particularly like to do. I didn't want to come to this church. I tell you it's not easy. Some people think it's only hard for the women when the men go away, but I'll tell you here's one standing in these old beat up shoes that finds it very hard to leave his wife and three children. The day before I left, I had three days with my family from the last month tour down in Tervandar. I took my family out sailing. I have a friend who's a pilot at the Bombay port, a ship pilot, and he wanted to do something for me and so we went out in a little sailboat to visit a training ship. I don't have ships on my mind. Anyway, we visited a training ship out in the Bombay harbor and took my children sailing. What a wonderful thing it is to be with one's family. One's wife. One does love. Then after one or two days you just sort of get to know them. They just realize their little daughter is still trying to figure out who's her father. Just as you get together and the Lord seems to be knitting your heart and you have some time of prayer, of course, then you step into an airplane and you go away again for another three weeks. If you think I enjoy this, you're crazy. I hate it. In my flesh, I'd rather walk through the back jungles of Carol, at least temporarily. I'll get fed up with that soon too because you must realize one thing about the flesh, it wants change. It's always greener on the other side of the fence. That's why some people go through life just constantly whirling around because the flesh wants change. You do door-to-door work eight hours a day, you'll want to get an administrative job. You do administrative work eight hours a day, you'll want to do door-to-door work. You preach eight hours a day, you'll want to do some other work because the flesh just so constantly wants change. And if you're going to serve Christ, if you're going to live for Christ, you must learn to do not that which you feel like doing, not that which you like to do, but that which God tells you to do as you wait on Him in prayer, as you allow the mind of Christ to take over in your life. And that's going to mean you're going to have to bring your body. And if you're not willing to do this, you're headed to the spiritual graveyard. I have seen so many casualties, so many casualties. Men who have been evangelists, who have led thousands to Christ, who hit the rock bed of statue of lust. I can name three missionary directors, some of you have heard me say it before, but I'll say it again. It's a warning because God in His Word gives us warnings about these things. He says, these are written that ye might not do the same thing. But I can give you the names of three missionary directors who rock piled and married their secretaries to divorce their wives. You say, that's unbelievable! Men who have led hundreds of souls to Christ, men who were respected, men who preached all over the world, men who were considered men of God, rock piled. There were two famous men some 20 years ago. One's name was Billy Graham, the other's name was Chuck Templeton. Chuck Templeton was a better speaker. He was getting better results. He was seeing greater things happen than Billy. Chuck Templeton today is just a complete wrecker. Writing filthy movie scripts and every possible thing. I know a man who was the head of a leading youth organization last year in a large city. Souls were coming to Christ, great noise, God's blessing. Today he's singing comedy songs in a dirty dingy nightclub in the very same city. Why? Because discipline is laid aside in the church. The church has so forgotten about discipline that after the average evangelistic meeting, everybody goes out to load up on hamburgers, milkshakes and what else you might have. And we know nothing of fasting. Fasting is just absolutely a forgotten thing. You mention the word and people look with horror at you. The church has so forgotten about discipline that after the average evangelistic meeting, everybody goes out to load up on hamburgers, milkshakes and what else you might have. And we know nothing of fasting. Fasting is just absolutely a forgotten thing. You mention the word and people look with horror at you. I want to tell you if you don't learn to fast, you'll never learn to conquer kidneys for the glory of God. I've never read about a man of God who didn't know something of fasting. Alan Redpath once said at Moody Church, he said, you know I don't want to fast anymore in our day because no one's really hungry for God. Fasting isn't so much a denial of something as it is a drawing nod to someone. You've heard of a young man who got so in love he couldn't eat? I can remember that in a meeting. Sometimes I had the flutter jetter in the inside, you couldn't throw me a steak, I wouldn't have even seen it. And I believe when some of us really fall in love with Jesus Christ we really get to know God. We're going to hunger for Him and we're going to be willing to say, well look, that's fine but I really don't want that meal today, I just want to meet with Jesus Christ. Jesus said, I have a meal that you know not of. Oh, if we learn something of that, we learn a little bit of denying our lives. Do you know the stomach is far closer to our hearts than we ever dare to admit. Do you know one of the major problems on all mission fields of the world for missionaries is adaptation to the diet. One of our own girls when she got out to India had a complete collapse, practically a nervous breakdown just for fear of the diet she was going to have. She went white as a sheet and just collapsed several times, was sick for one or two days. Unconsciously, consciously she thought she had the victory but unconsciously she kept thinking of hot foods, she kept thinking of getting sick, kept thinking of all these things. Of course, you worry about something you don't have to eat any hot food to get sick, you'll get sick right there and then. And she got sick, well praise God He gave her a wonderful victory over that particular thing and actually I actually love the food in India. There's nothing like people saying but oh my, the things it can tell you. The missionaries I've been with only the past week, they fly their food in from Singapore. They fly their goodies in from New York. You can't possibly live just on Indian dollars. And the things that are happening all over the mission field today are so heartbreaking because we've never learned discipline. And if you don't learn discipline in the coming days, this study program, this two hours a day, it's nothing. We can't discipline ourselves to fulfill a simple two hour a day study program. We are in need, in need of going to the cross and asking God to cross out something. The little discipline you need to try to get up on time, doesn't mean you can never sleep in. If you feel sick, if you feel ill, well then you should sleep in. But then you should communicate. But just the whole attitude of just letting the body sort of run. And oh, some people are rebellious. They think of the fact you can't get two or three tea breaks in Operation Mobilization. I dig the same line. In ten years, all these things will just be all history. They'll be all history. The kitchen will be open house. I'm not saying these things because I've heard anything about any trouble here in South America. We haven't even talked about this subject. We've started talking about more important things. But I tell you this, unless you learn discipline in the little things, if you are one of those those slave people that must have tea six times a day, you better either learn to get the discipline or I'll tell you you're through. Because the man who cannot control the appetites of the flesh as small as they might be, will not control the things that are big. Doesn't mean there's anything wrong with a cup of tea. I enjoy a cup of tea very much. Anything that will help the body, food is good, we shouldn't despise. We have some people I know when they go to extremes. And that is also a great danger. They feel every time they're eating they're sort of sinning. God wants you to eat, wants you to be healthy, wants you to have a proper diet. Some of the rumors that have gone out around this work are absolutely nonsense. I can tell you I visit most of the teams and most of them are eating pretty well and there's very few people that get sick because they eat little. Most of the sickness we get in the ranks of O.M. screams from the neck up. I can tell you that's the truth. And doctors today will tell you that 60-70% of all of them is all mainly emotional and mental. That doesn't mean we judge someone every time they get sick because who are you to know which kind of sickness it is. And there are plenty of good solid physical sicknesses still going around and we've got a lot of them in India. They don't come through the head, they come in four legs and other ways. And so I really pray that you'll see that you've got to learn no matter what the cost. And I know in my own life if I don't continue to learn more and more discipline then I'll be shipwrecked. The word of God is very clear and so, so very blunt. If I want you to just look quickly, I think it's 2 Corinthians chapter 10. These are very stunning words. 2 Corinthians, I think it's 10. 1 Corinthians 10 again. Really got my Corinthians mixed up this morning. Talks about Israel in the wilderness. Verse 5. With many of them God was not well pleased for they were overthrown in the wilderness. Now look, these people had a spiritual experience. They were all baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea. They did all eat the same spiritual meat. They did all drink the same spiritual drink for they drank of that spiritual rock that followed them and that rock was Christ. But with many of them God was not well pleased for they were overthrown in the wilderness. Now these things were our examples. See? That's why God put this horrible story. This is a horrible story. The guys that hate the Bible call this pornographic. They call it pornographic. Well there's a big difference between pornographic literature and the Bible because the Bible never condones it. It always condemns it. And that makes the difference. Look at those words. Neither be idolatrous is where some of them is written. The people sat down to eat, to drink and they rose up to play. That's Christianity in 1966. They sat down to eat and drink and they rose up to play. Neither let us commit fornication as some of them committed and fell in one day free of 20,000. You mean those same people that were baptized unto Moses? Those same people that drank of that spiritual rock? Those same people that had an experience with the promised Christ? Fell in one day? 23,000? What was the problem with these people? They never learned in all the wilderness time to say no to the flesh. They never learned to say no. When they wanted meat, they began to grumble and groan. You know there's a lot of people in our day, they don't have a clue of how sinful it is to complain. You know I don't believe in engaging in complaining and grumbling and groaning any more than I believe in engaging in immorality. Because you don't even see that they got struck dead for both things in the Old Testament. Remember how they wanted meat? And they wanted this and they wanted that? They knew nothing of discipline. They were just carried by the appetite of the flesh. And where did they get them? They never got them into the promised land. They all died in the wilderness. They were God's people but they were cast away because they never brought their body into subjection. God says these are for our example. Neither let us commit fornication. Neither let us tempt Christ as some of them also tempted and were destroyed of serpents. Neither murder ye as some of them also murdered and were destroyed of the destroyer. Now all these things happened unto them for example that are written for our admonition. Upon whom the ends of the world are come. Wherefore let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall. That speaks to me. Speaks to the strong man. The one who thinks he's pretty disciplined. The one who says well boy I'm glad I don't have any troubles with muscle. The one who says well I'm glad that I've got good control over my appetite. I can eat anything at any time. I even know how to fast. Beware lest ye fall. And I just praise God for verse 13. It's my only hope. Therefore have no temptation you taken you but such as is common to men. For God is faithful who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able. But will the temptation also make a way to escape that ye may be able to bear it. Now some people have read into that the thought that once they become a Christian temptation comes they'll always get the victory. No. Once you become a Christian temptation comes there's always an escape. That's what the verse says. There is a way of escape. It doesn't say you're going to be forced to take it. You still have to choose. It's very clear. Right there in black and white. He will also make a way to escape. And every time you're tempted every time there's some problem be sure look around and you can always look best on a bent position and you'll find there's a way to escape. There's always a way to escape. And you know every time the devil comes looming in on me with some stupid sin or temptation I always say well Lord you promised in 1 Corinthians 10.13 there's a way of escape. And I ask you to show me. And I take that as an answer. To do it you must say no to the flesh and yes to the spirit. You know as I read about the discipline of men in the world it just stabs me. Can't God do it in the church? The men that are going out to Vietnam. The training they're going through back in the States before they ever get on the ship. Getting up at the most early hours two and three miles running in the morning. The way they're practicing to learn how to fight. Some of them are getting hospitalized before they ever go. Unbelievable. The new training and teaching in the States now increases training four times as much as for the Korean War. These men over there and all over the world have learned that for soldiering there must be intensive training. If you're already a missionary you're in the wrong place. We are not a missionary society. We are not accepting missionaries. We're training. This is boot camp. This is where we're hoping that men will learn discipline. This is where we're hoping that young people will learn to pray, learn to study the word, learn to love others and learn to carry out the most basic things of the Christian life. You don't get the basics. You just have to build on top. When you think of these men training, it's only a miracle of God some of us aren't out in that war. I've got three children. That's keeping me company. Roger's so close to going out there they might put a hoop on his neck and pull him over at any minute. And there's some others around here among the Americans that could be out there. And I was here to say most of us in our first four weeks at boot camp, we'd be the first ones to break down and fall because it would be so tough and so hard compared to what we're used to in the ranks of Operation Mobilization. I was reading the life of General Westmoreland, the man who leads the troops in Vietnam. And when he had his troops over in Korea after the peace, it said Westmoreland was afraid that peacetime would play havoc with his troops. So he told his men, imagine telling your men just after the armistice, okay we got peace now, we're going to have a little bit of training to keep you guys in shape. We're getting up at five in the morning and we're going to have a two-mile run. I'd like to see anyone of you get up at five in the morning and do a two-mile run. Probably at the end of the first mile you'll call the transport department. But that's what they did. They get up at five in the morning took a two-mile run. After they had a two-mile run they looked for a creek, tried to find one with the thinnest ice, broke the ice and went in for a swim. When they got done with that they found and had a little breakfast, took their picks and shovels and dug for eight hours. I went out here and laid cement for one day and that practically knocked me out. So they did fortifications all day, then they had a little evening meal. After the meal they'd do two and a half hours of boxings, get their brains in shape and a few other things. Then General Westmoreland made the comment that at ten o'clock at night you never had any mischief with his troops. Some of you get a little bit excited at night and you have to talk so much and you can't sort of calm down because you don't get enough physical work. I think maybe next year we may make calisthenics voluntary at the conference. Of course we're always scared we might bring someone under the law. That's what people are always saying. You're going to bring us under the law. That is the biggest lie. Discipline doesn't bring a man under the law, it brings him into liberty. I don't think we'll require calisthenics this year, but it might be good to make everyone pass a physical fitness test. Then all those who pass they would be free from doing the calisthenics. Just a little test like 60 push-ups and a few hundred sit-ups and a few other little things. Anyway, the spirit hasn't confirmed that yet but it certainly would be a good thought. But I'll tell you, Paul says you must bring your body in the subjection. And we think of a discipline. I've just finished reading a story from World War II of men that were in prison camps. And they had one great desire to get out of the prison, just to get out. They dug tunnels 200 feet long with their bare hands. Some of you mechanics, you think you have a hard time? My oh my, can you imagine digging a tunnel 200 feet long with your bare fists? They had such a desire to get out, such a desire for freedom. Why, if we had that much desire to see our lives free from sin, if we had that much desire to see men free from the chains of death, why some of these men, when they were digging tunnels, you can hardly imagine if you can picture a little tunnel. And here are the men in here. There's one man, and here's the other man. No room above him, no room beneath him, just squashed together. Completely squashed together. Here, they had to put the sand from here over here. This is Paul's dog. The biggest problem in building these tunnels is they don't know where to put the sand and dirt. So they take the sand off here and put it here. And then they move up another half a foot. There's nothing. There's about a half a foot here, a half a foot there. They move more sand. They have little tiny straw pipes going up through the ground. It's the only air they get. For days, they go through. Some of them went 10, 20 feet in this type of tunnel. Most tunnels use an air tube. And they eventually were building underground railways. They tried so many of these projects and the Germans were very, very smart. They caught them every time. The whole group of Air Force men from Britain and America. They dig these tunnels and they get out of the tunnel. There was a German. Okay, go back to prison. And they tried again and again and again, escaping, escaping, escaping. And they got caught every time. They tried everything. These men escaped and they couldn't get out. And finally, they just determined they were getting out. 400 men in one of the biggest prison camps in western Germany. They just gave everything they had and they dug a tunnel hundreds of feet. They sunk a shaft deep into the ground, hundreds of feet with a ratch with a lice and they dug their way out. 300 men escaped from this unbelievable place out there. Now, who were they working for? And it was said that in those times, English and Americans who normally couldn't stand one another, they worked together in clockwork. And there were all kinds of other characters from all over the world, all different odd varieties that had been in prison there and they worked together like clockwork. Why? They had a common goal. They had such a common goal to get free, such a common goal to get out that they forgot all their little petty differences and the fact that some were Americans and some were English and all, and they united and they brought to pass this whole thing. It's unbelievable. You know, there's thousands of stories like that. That's just one little story. There's thousands of stories like that. Stories like the man I told most of you about some time ago that swam across the English Channel and back non-stop. It used to be a great thing to swim across. Now you've got to swim across to really get the big status symbol. You've got to go across and back. And on the way back to school, jellyfish came at him and started stinging him and stinging him. I thought I had a major persecution in Turkey because a couple of fleas got in my bed. And jellyfish stinging him all over the place. What did he do? He just kept swimming. Made it back to Great Britain. Unbelievable. The men in the world, they're climbing the mountains. The pilots that run these airplanes through the sky are going through such a discipline. Why it would scare most of us to think about it. The airline stewardesses that work in these airplanes. Everything you just look at, everything is a T. The way they dress, the way they operate, the way they've been through finishing school, repolishing school. Every kind of discipline for just that job. And some of us are so sloppy, so untidy, so absolutely undisciplined. Take one glance in our room and you'd wonder whether we knew how to pick up even a pair of socks. And God is just so concerned about this. He's so concerned that we learn neatness, that we learn discipline, that we learn to be responsible, that we learn to take care of ourselves, that we learn to bring our body to subjection. It's the only way. You can say, well, that's very hard. Sure, it's hard. But anything in life that ever amounted or ever counted for anything was hard. And I'm convinced that in the future there might be more dropouts on OM. But when we get through, we might have some body or some group of people that are going to be able to accomplish something for God. Making it easier will never help us. Will never help us. We think that's the way out. We make it easier. But it isn't. Because I tell you, days ahead are going to be hard. And we've got to learn now. And don't wait for somebody to enforce it. But do it because you love it. I pray to God you'll not take lightly what I said this morning. And in your study program, in your evangelism, in your letter writing, in your eating, in your sleeping, in every aspect of your life you'll become ruthlessly disciplined. Not in yourself, not in your flesh, but broad upon the grace of God. Realizing that His strength is made perfect in weakness. And you're not tunneling through with your own bare hands. He's tunneling through out of you. But you must want to go, you must be willing to go, you must be hungry to go, and you must say yes to Him as He gives the orders. And when you're in a job, it's typing, it's working on vehicles, and you feel it's hard, you feel you can't go on, that's the time to go on. That's the time to draw upon the resources of God. That's the time to bring your body into subjection. I was out, just some weeks ago, and boy, we'd been walking about three miles. Sun was sweltering on me, I had the water just running off my face. My shoes had these little sandals, and stones were coming through them. And I was tired, and the worst part of it all was, it's so hard for me when the houses are two, three hundred feet apart. And it seemed that we had to go through a labyrinth to get to each house. And you got to the house, and then we were in a break where they didn't have two pices to buy a house. So we'd say hello, we'd give a little word of testimony, and then we'd walk out, and then we'd go another three, four hundred feet, and sometimes much further, and we'd find another house. And well, we got in the middle of the morning, and a dear Indian brother was with me, and he said, well, don't you think it's hard then? You know, we've done enough here this morning, it's about eleven o'clock, it's time to go back. And oh boy, I tell you how the flesh just craved to go back. I thought of the fact that he'd probably have a nice something cool for me to drink. And yet, this is what's going to happen every day, so often times, as we go forth from the flanks of the Lord's army. The flesh will want to go back. And it might even be now, in this conference. Already the flesh maybe wants to go back. But young person, if you want to stay off the rock, if you want to accomplish anything in your life, for Christ and for eternity, you must learn the secret of the Apostle Paul. He brought his body into subjection. His mind controlled his body. The mind of Christ controlled the body of flesh that is with us and always will be with us. And he lived in victory, and he became a soldier and a conqueror for the Lord Jesus Christ. I pray to God, all of us, will by His grace and His resources and the life of Christ in us, which we've heard in other messages, bring our bodies into subjection. Lest, after preaching to us, we become reprobate. And if you think the days ahead are going to be too hard, and you're not willing to pay the price, please be honest. Drop out now. You can wreck yourself, you can wreck your life by getting prematurely into this kind of warfare. But don't go into the ranks of this army, unless you really are ready to bring your body into subjection. As the Spirit of God guides you and gives you the grace.